A Pope Francis Question

“We cannot insist only on issues related to poverty and economic justice This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about it in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

How would you think and feel about that? Because it’s how a lot of orthodox Catholics are thinking and feeling today.

But Francis is talking about the Church’s overemphasizing sex and abortion, you say. Hey, do you know how often John Paul talked about poverty and economics, and how important it was to him? Look.

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89 Responses to A Pope Francis Question

“Whereas issues of social justice, et al, are indeed prudential or not, as per the Catholic catechism, I really don’t know, but is an explanation that I’ve heard many, many times on why we really, really, don’t have to care about the poor.”

[eye roll]

This is decidedly obnoxious. There are many thinkers across the ages, some Catholic but most non-Catholic, who believe that government-funded social welfare programs create more poverty and dependence rather than eradicating it. If you don’t understand that, you should educate yourself about subsidiarity and dependence rather than wrongly attacking a religion whose elected politicians and Church leaders generally exhibit knee-jerk support for such programs anyway.

The difference between the reality of what Francis said and the hypothetical is that the overemphasis upon the sexual matters does present a pastoral problem, while the social teaching, frankly, does not. Even as an Orthodox Christian, I might wish that the social teachings of the Catholic Church presented some sort of problem, an impediment to the ready conversion of right-wing cafeteria Catholics like Weigel, Novak, and – on a different plane of failure – Gingrich. But they don’t. The latter sort convert, and immediately engage in all manner of mental Jesuitism, with the (contradictory) object of proving that a) the social teaching doesn’t claim precisely what it does claim, and b) that it isn’t binding upon their consciences (such as they are) anyway. On the other hand, their truth notwithstanding, the sexual teachings do frighten people away from the Church.

“The previous pope reprimanded the American nuns for caring too much about social justice and not speaking out enough about abortion and homosexuality.”

No. The previous Pope reprimanded some American nuns for, in many cases, actively undermining church teaching on ordination of women, homosexual sex, and abortion. Big difference.

“The American bishops were loudly opposed to the health care law, afraid that someone somewhere would get birth control if it passed.”

No. There were many problems with the health care law, probably the most important of which was forcing Catholics who believe that artificial birth control and abortion to be grave sin to subsidize (or worse, for Catholic employers, to pay for) artificial birth control and abortion. Again, big difference.

Rod,
How do you see this effecting Catholic and Orthodox dialog? Recently, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholrmew made it clear during a trip to Estonia the Apostolic teaching on some of these issues. Do you view this as a stumbling block to dialog?

Like Chris Burgwald I’m not bothered by the Pope’s comments. The problem among Catholics of both liberal and conservative persuasions, particularly in America, is our sense of autonomy. Liberals don’t mind high taxes (particularly if someone else is paying them) and absurd regulations (particularly if someone else is required to follow them) and conservatives don’t mind refraining from the deviant sex acts regarding which they have little interest. But tell the conservative that property rights are limited or the liberal that there are things he ought not to do with his sex organs and there’s going to be trouble. Emphasizing or deemphasizing one or the other isn’t going to help either side pick up their cross. If the Pope’s message of charity helps either or both sides of the culture war to do that it will be a good thing. The concern, of course, is that when we saw a similar pageant in the pre-JPII era we didn’t get humility and asceticism; we got a bunch of seminarians in lavender engaging in liturgical dance with their hippy-dippy parishioners.

I think many of who seem ine are missing the point. No one who is concerned or iked has any problem with re-emphasizing other aspects of the faith which have not been central themes of media attention and that ultimately a life in Christ is the point.

I think it is funny that so many of you think the Church is about sexual policing. The Church responds to the realities of the world — and anyone pretending that sex is not central to that existence is but pretending.

The Church has two missions first bring the good news of Christ and the second is to support the faithful.

And that means encouraging and admonishing a life that is Christ affirming as well living as Christ would have one live. And that is lifestyle whether poor or wealthy. Lifestyle is that reflector of Christ and should the church cease fostering the such lifestyles — she ceases to be the Church.

Christ was not a politician. He was not some rebel merely challenging the established Church/Jewish Orthodoxy. His mission was to fulfill a promise — that of restoration. And part of that restoration is the fulfillment of the law — old and new. So that on becoming a Christian one lives as according to the law of Christ. That means, no stealing, no lieing, no idolatry, honoring our parents, no kiling, no sexual relations outside of marriage, no coveting . . .

So I may fed the poor, but I am still bound to obey the law and no amouint of compassion excuses that.

A Church may attend to those with HIV and there are those that do as missions, but they are not going to say such compasion leads them to condone behavior out order with Christ.

And I have not heard the Pope make that distinction. My desire for social justice from the heart of Christ does not in any manner countenance homosexuality, promsicuity, stealing , lying — etc.

I’m just not seeing what all the hoo-ha is about these comments by Pope Francis. The New York Times piece and especially its headline is — typically for the Times — overblown and a distortion of what the Pope said.

Francis is addressing a PASTORAL problem, not a doctrinal one: How to present the Gospel to the world, given that the media through which most people will hear it will always magnify, overemphasize and distort anything a Pope says which relates in any way to sex.

What he is saying is not radically different from Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments in in the late 90s that the Church had “perhaps said too much” about those matters in recent years.

I do not see why this would trouble “theological conservatives.” And for what it’s worth my twitter feed is full of such people, and I’m not seeing much objection or angst. Maybe it’s a big deal among “Rorate Caeli” commentators, but they are unfortunately the very definition of fringe.

It seems to me that the Pope is talking about context, not teaching, and that he’s trying to get the Church to remember the context of its moral teachings, because divorced from their context the teachings can be counter-productive.

Decades ago a priest gave us the assignment of reading only the beginning and the end of every Epistle from Paul. What we found was a different person from the Paul of popular perception…someone who was ecstatic about Christ and the Church. Every theological precept he expounded upon arose from that context, every correction he gave was given within that context.

Yet separated from the context of an ecstatic experience of God, the words of Paul become a cudgel driving people away from God rather than a correction urging them towards an experience like his own. Context matters.

The contextual problem for the Roman Catholic Church is what led the Church to Vatican II, and the documents of that Council spend great energy on the context of the teachings of the Church. Maybe too much.

The reaction to that with JPII was to pronounce teachings that got stripped of their context, much as Paul gets stripped of his context, and became nothing more than a mask for presumed moral superiority.

The understanding that only One is Holy, that no-one is worthy of Christ, that all mankind has been given a great gift, has to be the starting point for any moral teaching.

A Pope who says “for the time being let’s remember the context of our faith” is a Pope trying to remind us that what we’re supposed to embody is the self-emptying love of Christ for even the least of our brethren, a love that is not well expressed in displays of righteous indignation.

I think personal ethics continue to particularly important to discuss today. There’s a bad hook-up culture in college, and an obesity problem among children. People often ascribe the latter problem to kids exercising less, but it has a lot to do with lack of an ethic about eating, and parents not taking the effort to make proper meals for their kids. There’s a big problem today in that we see all of these matters as purely utilitarian. That approach isn’t helping people at all.

So I don’t think the solution is to completely drop personal ethics and focus on poverty and social justice. These are very relevant subjects in people’s daily lives.

But even to productively engage these issues, conservatives need to learn how to do so them without becoming trapped in controversial topics that are distracting, or sound like their purpose is to judge others or scold them for bad behavior.

So ultimately, the Pope is right that you have to return to the core of Christian teaching, and then go from there.

John Paul did have a huge concern for social justice, but the American bishops, not so much. Until recently I was afflicted by one of the more conservative bishops who took the position that Catholics in his diocese, when voting, were only allowed to consider things the church considers intrinsic evils (abortion, contraception, gay marriage) and should not consider things like the Iraq war and cuts in food stamps. This meant, in practice, “vote Republican or do not receive the sacraments”. For years, I had to agonize over the degree of obedience I owed to the bishop over this, and whether it was OK to receive communion.

Of course, in a democracy where voters (hopefully) set policy, if Catholic voters are not allowed to consider war and poverty when voting, then the aggressive wars and the immiseration of the poor will continue. I know the Catholic bishops occasionally tell the Republican leadership “you really shouldn’t do that” when they cut food stamps and unemployment benefits, but as long as they continue to tell the laity “you must vote Republican” the Republican leadership can and will ignore anything the bishops say about poverty.

By comparison, Jesus’s ministry spent virtually Zero Time dwelling on the rampant gay sex of Greco-Roman culture and the habitual practices of mass infanticide.

I’m not aware that anyone in Jesus’ time was trying to argue, seriously, that those things could be reconciled with the tradition of the Mosaic law. But what we now is precisely that: people trying to argue that homosexual activity and abortion can be reconciled with traditional Christian teaching.

@EliteCommInc. that means encouraging and admonishing a life that is Christ affirming as well living as Christ would have one live. And that is lifestyle whether poor or wealthy.

Well, we do know what advice Christ gave to the wealthy, as to how he would have them live …

So that on becoming a Christian one lives as according to the law of Christ. That means, no stealing, no lieing, no idolatry, honoring our parents, no kiling, no sexual relations outside of marriage, no coveting . . .

Those were actually the laws set forth before Christ became man. In Christs’ own words:

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

It seems to me that Francis is speaking directly to the words of Christ, and not to the laws enumerated in the Books of Moses, or in the Gospels of Paul.

Why would conservatives want to hear homilies by their priests on contraception? Don’t they already know and believe what the Church says on the subject? I’ve seen comments like this many times, conservaCaths wanting their priests to speak up on contraception. I’ve always wondered why? It can’t surely be a desire to control other parishioner’s lives can it?

This kind of answer is precisely why the Pope’s comments were ill-advised. They feed the determination of people who have no intention of listening to the Church on pelvic issues to ignore it entirely. Hey, Jesus never talked about gay marriage, so he must have had no problem with it!

Some may take the absence of condemnation as a tacit consent, I realize. That is not what I am suggesting. But you, by this very post, are insinuating an equivalence that really just empowers a political left/right binary that should be dispensed with at once in religious dialog. I apologize for the snarky brevity of my first comment, but this post irritated me in a way that your previous posts on these issues (which I always appreciate if not fully agree) have not.

But let’s return to another statement of Francis’s in the interview to clarify, at least, what I am getting at: “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent”

This is the fact that this entire post is neglecting. We have the Beatitudes. We have time and time again scriptural accounts of Christ condemning the basic fundamentals of economic inequality – the effects of wealth and accumulation on the wealthy, the complacency engendered against the poor, etc. – calling us to think first of the least of these, of the poor, of the lost, of the broken. This is fundamental. It is, aside from the primal place of salvation in Christ, what we get from the life of Jesus as an example of how we as individuals and how we as a Church are called to live in this world.

Your hypothetical works if you wish to embrace the faulty logic of the left/right divide, but it does not work if you are really concerned with an issue’s place in the hierarchy of the Christian life. This is what Francis gets that you, at least in this instance, did not. This is why there is something seriously wrong with the proposition that Francis would say what you have put forth above, but what he truly said is not problematic.

Whether you believe this to be the case or not, what I believe, many of us believe, and apparently, what Pope Francis believes, is that the issues he mentioned occupy too much of too many Catholics’ energies, and they should find a better balance. And I say good for him. You may fear that this will empower those who think the issues should be dropped, or that the sins should even be embraced. I have more faith in his decision to stay this. I believe it will, hopefully, lead to that proper balance that he calls for throughout his interview.

I wrote about this on my tiny insignificant blog, but this is Pope Emeritus Benedict back in 2006:

“We should not allow our faith to be drained by too many discussions of multiple, minor details, but rather, should always keep our eyes in the first place on the greatness of Christianity.

“I remember, when I used go to Germany in the 1980s and ’90s, that I was asked to give interviews and I always knew the questions in advance. They concerned the ordination of women, contraception, abortion and other such constantly recurring problems.

“If we let ourselves be drawn into these discussions, the Church is then identified with certain commandments or prohibitions; we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somewhat antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness of the faith appears. I therefore consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith – a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us.”

I find what Pope Francis said yesterday to be a continuation of this same point: that we can’t let the world continue to present Catholicism as a religion which exists to oppose contraception, abortion, and gay marriage, period end of sentence. We start with Christ, and His Gospel, and then we build on that–especially the priests, whom, again, Pope Francis was addressing in that interview.

“The previous pope reprimanded the American nuns for caring too much about social justice and not speaking out enough about abortion and homosexuality.”

@Gretchen, wow – that is a false statement worthy of Pravda.

The previous Pope conducted an investigation of one of the two umbrella groups for women religious in the United States because of its implied endorsement of the view that Jesus Christ is not central to salvation.

In other words, basic Christianity was at issue. It had nothing to do with social justice.

“He lived in the Hellenic world, where homosexuality was fairly normal and accepted.”

@Labropotes, this is a great example of how historical falsehoods shape contemporary understanding of many issues.

1) Jesus’ mission was conducted within a first century Jewish context, where absolutely no one believed that homosexuality or infanticide or sexual activity outside of marriage was morally permissible.

2) The Greco-Roman world did not regard homosexuality as benign. The belief that it did seems to come largely from what we know of 4th century BC Athenian culture, and even there it is an exaggeration.

As for the Romans, the best modern analogy to the range of their attitudes on such issues might be from a bunch of locker room jocks to a gang of skinheads looking to beat somebody up.

Simon94022: Your response to Labropotes is fair to a point. But the distinction wanting in it gets to the heart of much of my hesitation – not disagreement – with the way many theological thinkers strongly opposed to any degree of, even the consideration of, ceded ground on the homosexuality issue. The concept of homosexuality in those times was limited to a concept of acts, not of orientation.

And in terms of the broader consideration about orientation – and I’m not interested in getting into the discussion about how “we are inherently sinful creatures.” I know this, and it is to a limited point a relevant repost – much advance has been made in the way of recognizing the constant minority variant of homosexuality across human populations, and across species, that should at the very least dilute this certainty in Natural Law we have that homosexuality is sin rather than, perhaps, something designed into the nature of things.

If the most talked about Church teaching in recent decades had been its economic ones, with people endlessly repeating economic messages as being essential to Christianity’s message, I’d have had a problem with that, and welcomed the Pope dressing down such people. But that hasn’t been the case. We don’t see the major voices of the Church in the media talking about the Church’s economic teachings. Instead, we get this obsession with sexual issues. That certainly does need a corrective. It’s not just that it isn’t the core of Christianity, it’s that it’s not at all being handled well or properly or in the spirit of true Christianity. It has hurt Christianity rather than helped it, and I think that’s why the Pope is addressing this problem.

Those who have been obsessed with sexual-cultural issues, as if that’s the core of what Christianity is about, or what its major concerns should be in our time, have been damaging Christianity, not helping. You know who you are, but you just don’t see yourselves in this light. Time to take a closer look. I know you won’t listen to people like me, but if you won’t even listen to the Pope, that’s much more significant, and telling.

For my entire life, the Catholic Church has been (by U.S. standards) very liberal on economics, war and peace, and immigration. Anyone who pays attention knows that. But there are cafeteria Catholics on the right too.

But has a politician ever been denied Communion because he wanted to cut the capital-gains tax and food stamps, or chose to launch an unjust war, or did not welcome the stranger among us?

The concept of “homosexuality” is a modern one, as is the gay identity. It warps history to talk about (from any POV) ancient notions– whether Greek, Roman, Judaic, Christian, whatever– about homosexuality or gayness. They did not have those concepts and had could thus have no opinions on them at all.

@Joshua Lore, You are certainly right that the distinction between acts and orientation is an essential one. I don’t want to start a debate here about sinfulness and homosexuality.

But it is tiresome to read the myth regurgitated by some here that pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures have been indifferent to it or even viewed it positively. This simply does not correspond to historical reality.

From the outside, the mock message you wrote is pretty much exactly what I heard from Benedict and the American bishops. Yeah, they’d give lip service to helping the poor and social justice, but in the end, they didn’t seem to do much but talk. The bishops only launched political war over abortion and depriving gay people and their families of health insurance and pensions.

Heck, one bishop even announced the excommunication of a nun for allowing an abortion needed to save the life of the mother. I guess you could call that the “let the woman die” theory of practicing medicine. Did anyone at a Catholic hospital ever get excommunicated (or punished in any way) for not providing enough charitable care?

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to gut the SNAP program, taking money from the poor and hungry… How long do you think it will be before a bishop, archbishop or cardinal calls for withholding the Host from a representative who supported this measure?

Although morally I think that might be appropriate, I have argued for years that when a bishop tries to coerce the vote of an elected official, or the voters in their parish, the bishop should be prosecuted for it. Its no different from any other form of bribery or blackmail. I must therefore be consistent, and affirm that an elective republic cannot tolerate such behavior under cover of religion, whether the issue is gutting SNAP benefits, or leaving Roe v. Wade in place as the law of the land.

Hey, can we simply celebrate that Pope Francis has announced that the Culture Wars are over? Conservative traditionalists might try to take a line from Phil Ochs. Tell the obsessed cultural liberals “I declare the war is over…” and walk away from all their petty little talk shows and faux debates. Leave them on stage debating themselves. Live your faith. It will do our nation some good, even when I don’t agree with every jot a tittle of what you advocate.

The church has overemphasized its opposition to homosexuality,abortion and contraception? Heh. Not any church I’ve attended in the last 20 years. Can’t say I’ve ever heard a homily on ANY of these topics. Nor were they discussed in my Catholic High School, which was oriented toward social justice. (nothing wrong with that, I just wish when they passed around the samples of contraceptives in our marriage class that they had made church teaching clear rather than leaving us with the implication that we were to use these things) Fortunately my parents made church teachings clear.

Good thing the pope didn’t say “who am I to judge billionaires who make their money off virtual slave labor in 3rd world nations!”

You know who you are, but you just don’t see yourselves in this light. Time to take a closer look. I know you won’t listen to people like me, but if you won’t even listen to the Pope, that’s much more significant, and telling.

Each one of us is invited to recognize in the fragile human being the face of the Lord, who, in his human flesh, experienced the indifference and loneliness to which we often condemn the poorest, either in the developing nations, or in the developed societies. Each child who is unborn, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who, even before he was born, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world. And also each old person and – I spoke of the child, let us also speak of the elderly, another point! And each old person, even if infirm or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the “culture of waste” proposes! They cannot be discarded!

First, there is a mote versus beam issue in the contemporary Catholic Church when it comes to sexual ethics. Could it be that the pope is acknowledging that his church’s authority to judge has been significantly compromised by its own recent scandals?

Second, the issues of economic and social justice are not analogous to abortion/homosexuality/contraception. Those “obsessed” with the former are concerned about victims, those “obsessed” with the latter are concerned about sinners. The church should be more like a hospital (where the patients are both sinners and victims) than it is like a courtroom full of judges.

The Church regards abortion/homosexuality/contraception as sins, and the pope is saying that in a world where all have sinned, the church should not be excessively eager to cast stones.

Unlike the state of sinfulness, poverty and oppression are not experienced by all. Those in the church who have and enjoy privilege, should absolutely be eager to relieve the suffering of the poor and oppressed.

So the things you substituted in the pope’s remarks are qualitatively different than the words he actually used, and would have undermined his gospel message. To steal an image used by N.T. Wright, if the church were a stereo with two speakers, one sounding judgment and the other compassion, the judgment speaker has long been turned up too high, and it’s time to turn up the volume of compassion in order to restore the balance.

“The Church regards abortion/homosexuality/contraception as sins, and the pope is saying that in a world where all have sinned, the church should not be excessively eager to cast stones.”

There it is the ultimate play. Everyone has issues . . . . know stone throwing.

Firstto introduce stone throwing is completely abusive. Because no one is talking about throwing stones. I am celibate — but I don’t make a cas for kiling anyone litreally ot symbolically for not practicing the same. I am so sick of that mantra false in all of it’s import. This is hot the liberal minded wors — ohh everyoe does this or that —- therefore let’s lower the bar.The bar is not a person’s to lower. It’s that of Christ, take it up with him.

Second, no, that everyone is a sinner has nothing to do with making an exception. The person engaged in homosexual practice cannot continue suc behavior once they come to Christ. The person who sreals cannot continue to steal. The person who lies cannot continue to lie.

Third, what the Pope has mistaken here and does so continually is the large contingent of advcates who want just that. They wanttobe able to have said sin and be considered faith and in right alignment with God. It cannot be, anymore than I can be in right alignment with bitterness. No and no.

These overtures the about how all have sinned is not a call to remove the law. The law is become by Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf, but it does remove the fence.
That’s why all this all to do commentary about sinning is but the foder of expeditions into other’s lives in an attempt to justify homosexuality, promiscuity, lying, cheating, stealing and any number of foibles people wrestle with.

A student asked me how you stop or prevent from this or that. Well, what is the goal of the question? A fishing expedition of some manner of expose’ to illicit some admission or merely a question? With liberals there are no innocent questions.

No. I think the Pope is doing something else he is making a compromise from for him there will no retreat. He is equvocating one a matter of doctrine not estableished by him but by Christ and these constant references to being a sinner are key signatures. If he had said hey, I once did X or I wrestled with X or leaned on the Apostle Paul’s comments of some ailment or struggle he said was his reminder to remain humble thatwould be one thing, but he isleaning on his compassion without acknowledging the law.

What interests me about the story of the woman caught in adultery is that Jesus doesn’t “lower the bar” of moral behavior. He tells her to go, and sin no more.

And neither does he command her accusers to drop their stones and relax their moral standards. He only asks them to examine their consciences, to turn their judgment on themselves, rather than on another.
This is an extremely difficult thing to do, because the sins of others invariably seem to be so much greater than our own.

I don’t mean to say “all have sinned, therefore everything goes.” I agree that Jesus does not lower the bar, he only says judge yourself first, and when you have found yourself to be without sin, then cast your stones. (He doesn’t even protest that stoning is too harsh a penalty for her crime.)

I think it speaks quite highly of the adulterous woman’s accusers that not a single one remained. Are we able to be so honest with ourselves?

Looking in from they outside, it seems to me that when anyone who identifies as a good Roman Catholic sees something from a position of authority in the church that this good Catholic disagrees with, its “a prudential matter,” code for, I can disagree with the hierarchy. When positions in authority in the church are in agreement with the good Catholic, its authority that ALL must humbly accept. Every Catholic with an opinion can play that game.